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diggAt Lunch with Dave Vander Griend
A Conversation with Dave Vander Griend, President-CEO of ICM, Inc.
Kim Benson
Ze Bernardinello
As we talk over lunch at Granite City’s west-side location, Vander Griend mentions how he just returned from Banff, where he addressed the Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit. He regularly crisscrosses the globe to address politicians and key business leaders, promoting ethanol as a renewable fuel source and building the case for more ethanol plants across the world.
The first thing one notices is how open and approachable he is. Vander Griend has effectively won over hearts and minds for ethanol, which he believes to be the solution to America’s dependence on foreign oil, as well as the biggest boost to the farming economy since the combine was invented. Proof of the man’s success in building and sustaining relationships are two chance encounters at the restaurant, first with a former employee, then a current one. Both greet him warmly, and he reciprocates.
As he lifts his glass to sip on an “Arnie Palmer,” a drink made of half iced tea, half lemonade, a clipped-off finger reveals Vander Griend hasn’t always sat behind a desk. He talks of growing up on a farm in northwestern Iowa and of owning a welding shop there years ago. The man is deeply passionate about ethanol and is extremely pleased that the Indy Racing League has chosen to go one hundred percent ethanol after trial runs proved its high-performance power. But something else is clearly on his mind.
He’s on a mission to figure out how to feed the world. Vander Griend is the first to admit he’s not sure how it will happen, nor when, and that’s why he’s put into place a top-notch research team made of Ph.D. food chemists. (One, he says, came up with the recipe several years ago to improve the taste of Cheerios.)
First, an explanation about ethanol production, and how it fits into this concept: during the dry mill process, corn is turned into two “value-added” products: livestock food, and ethanol for fuel. Finding a way to convert the corn by-product, or another grain derivative, into a human-consumptible protein is what Vander Griend’s chemists are looking into.
“What do third-world countries need?” Vander Griend asks. “They need protein. Starving people need protein to supplement the products they grow in their own countries. You can’t live on rice or wheat or corn by itself. The phenomenal opportunity we have here is to develop and put together a food supplement or protein product that can go out to countries that cannot produce on their own.”
Never mind that nobody’s done it before. “I’m not smart enough to know we can’t do this,” he confesses. “As we sit here, I can’t tell you the pathway. But I can tell you that we have a destination in mind and we’re trying to put the right people on the bus so that wherever we go, we end up there.”
He knows this mission is a long-term project that may take years to develop and will also require FDA approval. He also realizes that feeding the world is “a difficult thing to put wheels under. Helping people who are struggling—that’s what it’s all about,” he says. “I believe it’s the right thing to do. We are a humanitarian country that looks out for the better good of others. That is our intent.”
Ethanol, he explains, is the company’s core base of revenue and is allowing ICM to pursue other things. So, I ask, is there any chance the changing climate in Washington will impede or impact the widespread development of ethanol, the tax incentives it received under a Republican-dominated legislature, and thus, his company’s dream of feeding the world?
“One thing that’s pretty universal in the Washington circle, that both sides of the aisle can agree on, is that the ethanol industry is the best thing that’s happened to the agriculture industry since they invented the combine,” he maintains. “As a country, we’ve always been a low-cost producer and have always been capable of producing more than we can consume, and we’ve taught a lot of other countries to farm. Finally, here’s an opportunity for us to come up with a use for our ag commodities that really truly benefits everyone.”
Vander Griend is a patient man, and he can wait while new technology is developed, as people become better educated about the benefits of ethanol. After all, it took two years for him and his peers at the American Coalition for Ethanol to convince the Indy Racing League to switch from methanol to ethanol.
“We thought, how do we promote the performance side of the fuel? There’s nothing faster than an Indy race car,” he says. So they put an ethanol-powered race car on the track and splattered the industry’s distinctive “E” logo on top—yet another means of promoting the renewable fuel.
Now ICM is the sponsor for Jeff Simmons, who drives the #17 Indy race car. “I’m tickled pink that [the racing league] made this choice because they’re seeing more power, better fuel economy and better engine life out of the racing engines. There’s a whole lot more gas burned getting to the races than at the races,” Vander Griend points out frankly, “but you’re sending out the clear message: we are about performance, quality and clean air.”
For Vander Griend, ethanol is more than just a business: it’s an entire industry that has a significant benefit to agriculture, and consequently, the U.S. economy. “My dad still farms at 81 and says he’ll keep farming until it’s gone. Government has long supported ag to help the guys continue to do it. Finally we have an opportunity where farming can
support itself and be a self-sustaining free enterprise. That’s something that hasn’t happened in this country in 150 years.”
Five hundred people are employed by ICM. Two hundred more will likely be added next year, Vander Griend says. Hundreds more in the Wichita metro area who work for other companies are contracted exclusively to work on ICM products. The knowledge that ICM just completed construction on another forty thousand square feet of office space and is looking to add another sixteen thousand next spring begs the questions: Will ICM outgrow Colwich? Would they ever move? “When you get this big with this many offices,” he says, “it’s kind of like, how do you move? We’re staying here.”
